Czechoslovakia and Spheres of Influence towards the End of the Second World War

Abstract

MOST journalists, and even some historians, claim that Czechoslovakia was ceded to the Soviet sphere of influence within the framework of a Great Power accord towards the end of the Second World War. Because of such writing, this has also become an explanation of the country’s post-war ill fortunes that is accepted by most Czechs and Slovaks. Some leading politicians are only too willing to strengthen this view. In his address at a ceremony commemorating the sixtieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War at Prague Castle, President Vaclav Klaus stated: ‘The Yalta accords, whereby the victorious Powers delimited their spheres of influence, resulted in a renewed partition of the world in the first post-war hours and in the fact that the world was again preparing for a confrontation. As a result, Communist regimes were installed in our part of Europe.’ President George W. Bush even linked the ‘agreement at Yalta’ with ‘the unjust tradition of Munich and the Molotov– Ribbentrop pact’. Klaus, on his part, used the term ‘historical truth’ several times in his speech and warned also against any attempts at ‘rewriting history’. Naturally, thousands of academic papers put together do not have the impact of one or two presidential speeches. None the less, if the Yalta myth continues to be presented as an historical truth, then it is high time to join the process of rewriting history. In a more sophisticated version of this myth, the Allied Powers only allegedly agreed on their collaboration in solving European countries’ problems. The general nature of the Yalta accords then led Stalin to the conclusion that the Western powers recognized de facto Soviet control of central and eastern Europe, where he had a free hand to install Communist regimes. American and British consent to moving the Soviet frontier westwards and establishing